Running water and some Carnival images

The city power company stopped operating on Saturday. Thankfully, I have batteries where I live. So I had power until Monday. But then my luck ran out. Aside from the difficulties related to my online classes, it's not that big of a deal to me. If it was, I would never have come to Haiti. But it is interesting to be reminded of all the ways in which I'm "power-dependent."

For example, I generally have running water at my place. But the running water is based on gravity. And I have to get the water to the roof from the cistern in the ground. That's much easier with an electric pump. And with limited electricity -- lights only -- for a few days, the tank on the roof ran dry. So when I awoke this morning... it was back to my backpacker days for cleaning up.

It was the ole bucket-o-water, over-the-shoulder shower for me. :) Anyway... I don't consider myself a particularly fussy person, but it did make me remember how much I appreciate running water. It really is nice.

And on an entirely different topic... since I finally have a functioning web connection, here are a few images from Carnival. Here are a couple pix of the nighttime "processions" or impromptu parades:And of course, here's one of the many masked merrymakers:

Tim White

Energy conservation plan: initial proposer walkthru

It’s taken years to get here. But with gasoline inching toward $4 / gallon, the time couldn’t be better for the Council and BOE to be moving forward with their town wide energy conservation plan.

The next step in the long process to overhaul potentially dozens of buildings is scheduled for Tuesday at 9am in Town Hall. All proposers for the energy conservation RFP are to attend a walkthrough that will include staff from both the Town (esp. Town Hall and PD) and BOE (esp. CHS and Dodd).

Including CHS is particularly helpful. You may recall that the August 2009 capital budget saw the electric retrofit for (the back 1/3 of) CHS balloon from $1.9 million to $4 million... and get indefinitely delayed. But this project is intended to cover CHS. So hopefully the two will dovetail with the lifetime savings of the improvements offsetting the capital costs of the project.

But beyond the initial four buildings, if things move forward as anticipated, the town could eventually expand the scope of the work to include all town buildings and schools. However, it was decided that a more limited group of buildings was the best approach to begin the energy conservation plan.

H/t to Councilman Steve Carroll for the head’s up!

Tim White

Milford & Amity schools using performance contracts for energy conservation

With all the snow on the ground... and forecasts of $4 gasoline by this spring... energy conservation may be on the minds of many of you.

Energy Commission member Walt Gayeski forwarded me this real-life example of performance contracts that are being engaged in the Milford school system, as well as the Amity School District (Bethany, Orange & Woodbridge).

But this is only an example. In reading the article, it appears that Milford schools first addressed their envelope issues. And now they're addressing their energy issues. Cheshire's plan is to simultaneously tackle both energy and envelope issues, as well as both school and town buildings.

Tim White

Performance contracting in Cheshire?

The MRJs Jesse Buchanan reports:

The town will soon release a request for energy-saving proposals as part of a performance-based contract, something the Energy Commission and former Town Councilor Tim White have pushed for years.

I thank the Council for seriously considering this as an option for engaging in a town wide infrastructure improvement and energy conservation plan.

Further into the article, Jesse had a line that suggests if you knock loud enough and long enough... they'll eventually consider what you're saying...

“Maybe people just got tired of Tim yacking about it and just did the thing,” Ogurick said. “We’ve been advocating for it for seven to eight years.”

Haha... I got a chuckle out of that line. Thanks Rich! But seriously...

Engaging in a town wide plan makes good financial sense. But besides conserving energy and saving money... if the initially planned four buildings is expanded to cover more of the towns 24 primary buildings (about 1,000,000 sq ft; 800k schools & 200k town), then this could eventually be a textbook case study in reducing the overall size and scope of government with a commensurate reduction in headcount... which would have a positive impact on our defined benefit pension plan.*

So this could have a lot of positives from the perspective of the taxpayer.

Tim White

* By "positive impact," I mean it may initially add beneficiaries to the plan. But ultimately, the first thing we need to do is get all eligible employees to close their plans. Then we can measure the liability. Then we can start paying it and reducing the liability.

NG pipeline for Norton School; Council sees the big picture

Last week the Council's Planning Committee discussed the possibility of extending natural gas pipelines to both Norton School* and Doolittle School.** When the issue of costs arose, it gave everyone pause. As the MRJs Jesse Buchanan reported:

Town Council planning committee chairman James Sima said Norton school could be hooked up to existing gas pipes... for $500,000, while Doolittle could be hooked up for $450,000.

Not chump change. But the Planning Committee recognized that initial costs are only part of the discussion.

Using the Town's Energy Benchmarking Tool, we immediately knew that Norton School had about $105,000 in energy bills last year, including both oil and electric. But costs are a function of the main concern: consumption.

DPW staff quickly determined that Norton's oil consumption was:

19,500 gallons (delivery dates from 11/16/09 to 3/31/10...)

and then had that converted to BTUs and to an equivalent of:

2,621 MCF of natural gas.

Then BOE staff immediately reviewed Norton's numbers with a back-of-the-napkin calculation and determined:

19,500 gallons of oil @ $2.362 = $46,059
26,210 CCF of natural gas @ $1.22 = $31,976

And noted that ancillary costs* may be $3,000 annually... for an annual savings of $17,000 based on current unit costs.

By itself, this would be a 30 year payback on the Norton pipeline.

$500,000 / $17,000 = 29.5 years

And while there are other tangible benefits,** 30 years is a long time. So by itself, this may not work. BUT...

Yankee Gas is interested in Town business beyond Norton and Doolittle.

For example, the Youth Center uses oil exclusively. Yankee would like to sell NG there. And while CHS runs largely on oil, it's also prepared to heat with NG... but until now, the pool consumed everything that made it that far south.

So the new NG capacity offers the possibility of material changes to the overall Yankee / Town relationship. As such it may be possible to work within the DPUC-regulated pipeline costs, while moving our schools to NG and providing an improved quality of life / lower cost of living to many town residents.

I thank Jimmy Sima and the Planning Committee for looking at not only the initial costs, but at the lifecycle costs, including the much larger relationship. It's also nice to see the Council and BOE doing this for many big, new projects, such as the pool, the turf and natural gas pipelines.

Where data can be quantified with some degree of certainty, we should look at the big picture and not be exclusively focused on initial costs.

Tim White

* Probably down Route 42
** Probably down Ives Row and across Oak Avenue
* NG is much cleaner than oil, thus it's less costly to maintain equipment, NG does not need anyone monitoring oil levels to ensure timely fuel drops, etc.
** NG is from North America, not the middle east; NG is cleaner than oil; North Brooksvale homeowners could hookup; feeder roads may be able to get pipeline in the future; etc.

Jimmy Sima to discuss NG pipelines for schools

For the past year, I've been covering the expansion of natural gas pipelines in Cheshire. I started in September 2009 here and here, mentioned it again in December 2009 and continued in February 2010 here and here. But at this point, we're finally seeing the town government discuss the potential value of the increased NG capacity.

In August of this year, the BOE began talk of using NG to heat Norton and Doolittle. And in September (see here, here and here) I began to understand and explain some of the details of how households could take advantage of the new Yankee Gas pipelines. But a central part of the Council and BOE natural gas discussions begins on Wednesday.

The Planning Committee's Chairman, Jimmy Sima, has a meeting scheduled for Wednesday night @ 7:30pm. The natural gas pipeline extensions to the schools are on the agenda.

If you live on North Brooksvale -- or on any Route 10 / Route 42 feeder roads that may get paved in the next few years -- you may want to attend. It would reinforce the idea with Town staff that residents are interested in NG as a heating source. And it would remind them that if they pave any of the feeder roads in the near future, they should be mindful of the possibility of working with Yankee Gas to provide people with another home heating energy option.

Tim White

The price of natural gas vs. the price of oil

If you heat your home with oil, then you may want to consider converting to natural gas. Click here to see a ten year history of the prices of the two different fuels.

Yesterday I began detailing the areas of town that may soon benefit from a natural gas option.

Tim White

I haven't confirmed the accuracy of the chart, but it is in line with what I know to be true... that the price of NG tends to mirror the price of oil... but is less expensive than oil in a fairly consistent manner.

Natural gas for households may be available soon

At the September 14 Council meeting, the TM commented on the Yankee Gas pipeline installation. I then commented:



Since Sept 14 I've gotten some additional information.

There are two likely extensions, one to Doolittle and one to Norton. The Doolittle extension is a bit complicated for a number of reasons. And at this point, there's no good reason to believe that households would be able to connect. But the Norton School extension is a different story.

With the regulator being installed at the Episcopal Church, the gas line headed south is appropriate for household hookups. And if the gas line is extended down North Brooksvale to Norton School, that pipeline would also be appropriate for household hookups.

And household hookups potentially have no initial cost. Instead, if the DPUC-regulated numbers make sense, a household may get the hookup free-of-charge... with Yankee Gas locking your house into a 15 year natural gas purchase agreement. This agreement would be for heat, not just stoves.

But that only benefits houses located directly on Route 42 and Route 10. In order to ensure the Town is working to provide a quality standard of living in Cheshire, I asked a few more questions.

One of Yankee's main cost considerations is cutting & repaving road. But if the town is repaving a road, there may be an opportunity for Yankee and the Town to work together to make NG available to other households.

I'm not sure which Route 42 feeder roads will be paved in the next year or two, but Broadview, Long Hill and Farmington Drive all come to mind as possibilities. So if you live in the area and your road has not yet been paved, you may want to learn more about this. And while I've got the Norton extension on my mind, I presume this collaborative effort could work on any Route 10 feeder roads that are south of the Episcopal Church.

Tim White

Natural gas update & pipeline extension synergies

Back in February I began publicly discussing the possibility of
Cheshire households taking advantage of natural gas as an energy option.

At last week's Council meeting, we got an update from the TM on the natural gas pipelines being constructed from Wallingford to Waterbury through Cheshire. The TM noted the possibility of residents and businesses hooking up to the NG pipelines that pass their property. It may be possible for some to fight their oil consumption by using NG as soon as November 2010.Since there are residents beyond the main pipelines of Routes 10, 68 & 70 who are interested in using NG, I'm hoping the Council remains cognizant of this. There may be synergies found in extending NG pipeline at the same time that roads are excavated for other reasons, such as sewers, water and underground electric lines.

Tim White

N2NEC: initial brainstorming session

Tonight we had the initial brainstorming session of the Neighbor-to-Nieghbor-Energy-Challenge (N2NEC). I previously described the N2NEC here.

Some general info about the N2NEC:

1) Cheshire is one of 14 towns that are participating;
2) It's a $4.2 million energy grant;
3) The 14 towns are aggregated in four clusters;
4) Bethany and Cheshire constitute one of the four clusters;
5) The idea is to get 10% of all households to participate;
6) Those households should reduce their total energy consumption by 20%;
7) Outreach efforts will be measured for success / failure;
8) The successful efforts will hopefully be rolled out across the state;
9) This program is largely a marketing effort intended to increase awareness of the already existing programs available via the CT Energy Efficiency Fund, the CT Clean Energy Fund and other orgs.

If you're interested to learn more, visit the N2NEC FB page here. Or, as we discussed during tonight's brainstorming session, please invite one of us to speak your civic organization. We're hoping to come speak to different groups in town to elaborate on how this program can be used to benefit your organization, such as with fundraising, and your household, such as with reduced energy bills.

Last, but not least, if you know anyone looking for a job... this program has some job postings on this page in the near future for recent college grads who are passionate about energy and the environment.

Tim White

Capital Budget '10/11: schools - renovations (1 of 5)

In reviewing the capital budget for the schools, I suggest you start with the BOEs entire proposal for 2010 / 2011. Then look at the details for code compliance and roofs and wrap it up with this five part series on renovations, starting here with part 1:And my initial reaction to the first three items...

The TM probably already spoke with the Superintendent and concluded that some of this stuff can be delayed. I just want to make sure we include the CHS improvements in the soon-to-be-released Energy RFP... and keep in mind the possibility of scaling up the Energy RFP to cover other town buildings, including Highland, Chapman and Humiston.We should maintain the infrastructure we have, but repaving is an obvious candidate for spending reductions / delays.I'll want the Superintendent to explain the urgency of these improvements. But I'm guessing that air quality improvements will be more difficult to delay than repaving.Your thoughts?

Tim White

N2NEC: Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge begins

As I've been mentioning since last December, Cheshire is one of 14 towns that was included in a recently announced $4.2 million energy grant. The 14 towns are aggregated in four clusters. Bethany and Cheshire constitute one of the four clusters.

Though I heard about it last year, the actual grant application wasn't approved until May.* And by June I reached out to a few people and got the ball rolling on the first Bethany / Cheshire meeting for the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge (N2NEC).

Although I didn't fully understand it back in December, I now see the goal of the grant is fairly simple... though difficult to achieve.

The idea is to get 10% of all households to participate and to reduce their total energy consumption by 20%... and to measure everything, including what works and what doesn't work. Then use that information to roll out the successful measures across the state.

I'll post more on this. But in the meantime if you're interested to learn more, visit the N2NEC FB page here or block out a time on your calendar for the first N2NEC brainstorming session for the night of either Monday Aug 16 or Thursday Aug 19... I'll give you a date certain after I hear back from a few more people.

Last, but not least, if you know anyone looking for a job... this program is looking for an experienced organizer... and may very well have some job postings on this page in the near future for recent college grads who are passionate about energy and the environment.

Tim White

* Much of the credit goes to Congressman Chris Murphy for gaining the support of CTs seven legislators.

Waste collection tonnage by month

Not the most exciting stuff, but I find it interesting in the event that Cheshire ever moves to something similar to Recyclebank. Recyclebank is an organization that pays households for your recyclables by weight.Tim White

Capital Budget '10/11: schools - roofs & the Energy RFP

There's a lot of information in the capital budget, so I want to recap the entire CB and the schools now.

- If you want to attend any meetings, you can find the meeting schedule here.

- If you want to see the TMs entire proposal, click here for the 2010 / 2011 overview.

- If you want to see the BOEs portion of the TMs proposed 2010 / 2011 capital budget, click here to see the three sections: code compliance, roofs & renovation.

On Friday, I offered some details on code compliance. Now here are the details on the second part of the BOEs request -- roofing:Obviously, roofing needs to be done. But I still have questions, including:

1) When must various roof sections be repaired?

2) Can they be responsibly delayed, so that they can either:a) be included as part of the Town's comprehensive approach to energy and building envelope issues via the soon-to-be-released RFP;

or

b) minimize spending for the time being?

My hope is that the pending RFP will allow us to move past the piecemeal approach to maintaining our infrastructure and take a comprehensive approach to our energy and building envelope issues.

This comprehensive approach is something I've been pushing -- in one way or another -- for years. Unfortunately, facilities management isn't my background. So I wasn't sure how to properly advocate it and get buy-in from all the stakeholders. Regardless, we're about to issue an RFP and I think we're on the cusp of something good.

On a side note, at last week's Energy Commission meeting there were several people there who work on state-level energy issues. And when the topic of performance contracting and the RFP arose it was noted anecdotally that Cheshire is leading the state with its approach. So I thank the Council, particularly Tim Slocum and David Schrumm, and staff for getting us this far and encourage everyone to keep pushing forward on this.

Tim White

Capital Budget '10/11: overview & CNR vs bonding

Here's the overview of the current year and five year capital budget that has been proposed by the TM:I'll provide the details of the budget over the next few weeks.

And below is the breakdown on which items would likely be funded thru the operating budget (CNR or Capital Non-Recurring) vs. the capital budget (bonded with ten or 20 year bonds). The CNR budget is here:The CNR budget is typically in the range of $1.0 to $1.5 million dollars. It is one part (of five parts) of the town's nearly $100 million operating budget. The other four parts are: general government, schools, debt & contingency.

The bonding budget is here:A couple of points:

1) As you can see, the $30 million sewer plant upgrade is not in Year One. If that holds, then it won't be a referendum question this year.

2) The Townwide Energy Conservation Plan is not included in the capital budget. Yet it may require a referendum this fall if we get useful responses for the suggested RFP deadline. So if the Council wants to move forward on energy efficiency and infrastructure improvements at the Town Hall, PD, CHS & Dodd... then we'll need to incorporate this as part of the capital budget discussions. This would also impact the 2012 / 2013 capital budget. That's where the CHS eletric retrofit and air conditioning project landed after last year's deferral.

3) The turf is in the school part of the capital budget.

More details to come... but figured this is a good starting point for discussion.

Tim White

Solid Waste Committee agenda - June 29, 2010

TOWN COUNCIL SOLID WASTE COMMITTEE
7:30 P.M., TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 2010
ROOM 207, TOWN HALL, 84 SOUTH MAIN STREET, CHESHIRE, CT

AGENDA:

1. Roll Call.

2. Pledge of Allegiance.

3. Transfer Station.

4. Bulky Waste Collection.

5. Recycling/Single Stream Recycling.

6. CRRA funds status.

7. Status report on the Wallingford Regional Solid Waste Project and Covanta.

8. Adjournment.

One thing I've been investigating is engaging in a relationship with RecycleBank. I think residents would appreciate it as Recyclebank's business plan is to literally weigh your recyclables, then pay you for them.* At this point though, it appears highly unlikely that anything would happen with them in the near future for a number of reasons. But maybe the Council could touch base with them again in a few years. Regardless, if we can at least move toward single-stream recycling, that would be a huge win for the environment and something I've wanted for a while.

Tim White

* The payments are in the form of vouchers to local stores.

Energy Commission - June 28, 2010

The Energy Commission met tonight. One of the lengthiest discussions related to an extension of the household energy audit program. The basic idea is that the energy audits that happened about a month ago were funded with $27,000 of stimulus money... and there's about $10,000 remaining. About 650 houses were audited back then and the EC hopes to audit another 400 with a $25 discount off of CL&P's $75 fee... so the cost to you would be $50. More details to come, but it'll probably begin soon.

There was some discussion about retrofitting some school light poles with more efficient lighting.

Chris Halpin of Celtic Energy continues working with the town and schools on the RFP for a townwide energy conservation plan... that may be funded with a performance contract. Again though, I'm not too concerned about engaging in a performance contract. My goal is to address the town's energy consumption in a comprehensive manner... and to finance it the best way possible. Details mentioned tonight were that the project has been scoped out with probably four buildings being included... but the project is intended to be scalable. In other words, the town could engage an energy services company for four buildings initially... but expand that contract to all two dozen buildings, if it makes sense. The four buildings that will likely be included are: Town Hall, PD, CHS & Dodd. The RFP should be ready by the end of July with responses being received by September... which is great news. I'm hoping this addresses the $4 million CHS retrofit project.

And the pool was discussed.

Tim White

Pool vote results and next steps

The pool structure was rejected by a margin of 2572 to 1621. That's 61.3% of the voters opposed to the $7,068,000 expenditure and 38.7% supporting it... with no "blank" votes.

I was wondering if there would be any blank votes as one person asked me if that would qualify for "fill-it-in." When I told her I doubted the Council would interpret her vote that way, she decided to vote "no."

As for my vote -- and as I said before -- I voted "no." Though I am glad the voters had the option of voting on the structure. I've spent years in a consensus-building effort to defund the bubble. But that hasn't gained any traction. So I figured "surging" ahead with the structure was my only course of action because it was still a better option than the bubble.

Frankly though -- and quite unfortunately -- I had one reporter tell me that another Council member has already begun discussing shelving the structure for future use. Unreal!

Some people just don't want to take no for an answer... reminds me about all the original pool votes that got rejected until one finally passed. But even worse, the comment reminded me about yesterday's Rasmussen poll that basically suggests voters simply don't trust politicians. Anyway...

Next step?

I'll continue in my efforts to defund the bubble and make it summer-only. And at that point -- and only at that point -- I would be willing to consider supporting a regular-sized pool... 25 meters and six lanes... no more of our local version of Too Big To Fail. And that's exactly what our pool is. With failed referendum after failed referendum, former Councils continued making more and more promises to everyone... until it was all-things-to-all-people. Then, and only then, did it pass.

And I'm the first to say the pool we have is nice. And the structure would be nice. But then, it would be nice if Social Security began at age 37 and I could retire today!

The fact is government can't do everything.

Again -- and as I stated publicly a few years ago -- I would consider supporting a year-round pool. But not if it's TBTF... because as Senator Bernie Sanders made clear with the banks... if it's TBTF, then it's Too Big To Exist!

Hopefully, we'll soon move past the bubble. Then the Council and voters can have a rational discussion about an affordable pool.

My thinking is fairly simple. The pool would be open year-round for 12 hours per day. It would be open to:

1) the public from 8am to 2pm year-round;
2) the boys swim team from 2pm to 8pm for their three mos season;
3) the girls swim team from 2pm to 8pm for their three mos season; and
4) the Seadogs from 2pm to 8pm for the other six months.

Would that make everyone happy?

No.

But government is lying when it says it can be all-things-to-all-people. It's simply unsustainable.

Finally, the local roundup on the pool results, include the NHR, WRA, and MRJ.

Tim White

Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge (part 2)

Here are a few more details on the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge that recently got approved for 14 CT towns, including Cheshire:Regarding the 14 towns, they fall into four clusters:

Cluster 1: Bethany & Cheshire

Cluster 2: East Haddam, East Hampton, Glastonbury, Portland & Wethersfield

Cluster 3: Lebanon, Mansfield & Windham

Cluster 4: Ridgefield, Weston, Westport & Wilton

Just today, Governor Rell issued this statement on the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge.

And if you want to participate in the discussion about where / how the $4.1 million is spent in the 14 towns, I encourage you to join this Facebook page dedicated to the energy improvement initiative.

Tim White

Intro to the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge

Last Friday I mentioned that the 14 Nutmeg Towns that were included in the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge were awarded their $4.1 million grant that had been requested. To bring you up-to-speed, here is a bried intro to the program:Tim White